Child killer Lucy Letby’s parents blast Netflix documentary for ‘invading their privacy’
Susan and John Letby, whose daughter is serving 15 whole life terms for targeting babies, have spoken out about ‘The Investigation of Lucy Letby’
Lucy Letby’s parents have blasted a new documentary as a “complete invasion of privacy” for using footage of the former nurse being arrested in her pyjamas at their home.
In their first public statement, Susan and John Letby also claimed the senior investigating officer in the case against their daughter “seemed to have a deep hatred” of them.
The ex-neonatal nurse is the most prolific child serial killer in Britain, having been convicted of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
However there have been mounting calls for a retrial as the 36-year-old’s legal team has raised major questions about the safety of her convictions.
A trailer for The Investigation of Lucy Letby, due to be aired on Netflix on Wednesday, shows previously unreleased footage of officers arriving at Letby’s family home to arrest her.
Letby was arrested three times. On the first occasion, in July 2018, she was led out of her home wearing a blue tracksuit.
However, on this occasion, in 2019, they are seen entering her bedroom, where Letby sits up in bed looking confused, before officers tell her she is being arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
She is heard sounding emotional and telling others “don’t look, just go in” as she is led outside by officers in her dressing gown.
Letby’s parents have said they will not watch the documentary and fear it will turn their home into a “tourist attraction”.
They told The Sunday Times: “The previous programmes made about Lucy, including Panorama and the almost nightly news showing her being brought out handcuffed in a blue tracksuit are heartbreaking for us.
“However, this Netflix documentary is on another level. We had no idea they were using footage in our house. We will not watch it; it would likely kill us if we did.
“We have, however, stumbled on pictures of her being arrested in her bedroom in our house and her saying goodbye to one of her beloved cats which are even more distressing. Heaven knows how much more they have to show.
“All this taking place in the home where we have lived for 40 years. It is in a small cul-de-sac in a small town where everyone knows everyone. It is a complete invasion of privacy of which we would have known nothing if Lucy's barrister had not told us.”
They added: “What we go through every day is nothing to what Lucy goes through but we still have to live here. Will our house become a tourist attraction like Lucy's in Chester? We will find out the following day when everything is plastered over the papers and the news will be full of it.”
During her trial Letby claimed she had been taken to the police station in her pyjamas. However, this was disputed by the prosecution, who accused her of trying to garner sympathy with the jury.
Dame Esther Rantzen this week joined calls for the evidence against Letby to be re-examined.
Following the new footage, Dame Esther, who was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in 2023, said: “This week a photograph was published of Lucy Letby being arrested when she was in her bedroom. But when she described being taken to a police station in her pyjamas, the prosecution alleged that this was untrue and that she had invented this detail in order to create sympathy for herself. But the prosecution was wrong. It was not an invention. It was the truth.”
Meanwhile senior Tory MP Sir David Davis, who has called for Letby to be retried, told Times Radio her original trial was an “exercise in confirmatory bias”.
The documentary comes after it was announced the child serial killer will face no further criminal charges over baby deaths and collapses at two hospitals where she worked.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had reviewed evidence following a 2025 investigation into allegations of murder and attempted murder against nine children, but concluded that “the evidential test was not met in any of those cases”.
In a rare step, Cheshire Constabulary spoke out publicly against the decision, which it said was “not the outcome that we had anticipated throughout our investigation”.
Letby has always maintained her innocence. Her case is currently being examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission after her legal team compiled reports from a team of leading neonatologists, who concluded no crimes were committed.
Netflix and Cheshire Police have been contacted for comment. The Investigation of Lucy Letby is scheduled for release on Netflix on 4 February.
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